This invention relates generally to electronic commerce (“e-commerce”) over the Internet, and more specifically to a method and system for assisting a user to efficiently search for specific product, price, and promotional information from a multitude of e-commerce websites.
One of the main problems with the proliferation of data now available on the Internet is the massive amount of information, attractions, and website locations available to the user. Internet users are burdened with information overload and most users will decide that their time is too valuable to flail about aimlessly, looking for specific information. Thus, these overburdened users resort to simply using a few familiar websites to avoid having to sift through extraneous information. Unfortunately, these users deprive themselves of much of the useful information that is available on the multitude of e-commerce websites that now exist.
A solution for handling this information deluge came in the form of search engines that take a user's query and try to excavate useful information from different websites. While the theory behind these websites is sound, in practice they can exacerbate the very problem that their design had hoped to avoid. At issue is whether these search engines, which scour the Internet for an answer to the user's query, are particularly successful in delivering either a solid abstract of information or in listing a series of websites that have a demonstrable link to the content that interests the user. For the most part, these search engines continue to overwhelm the user with irrelevant information. Indeed, even “portal” websites, which claim to narrowly limit the user's browsing experience based on the query criterion that the user has defined, offer an overflow of information. In response to this problem, the “bot” was created.
The bot itself is nothing more than an automatic computerized function that acts on pre-programmed behaviors. Much like an air conditioner or sprinkler system that turns on when certain conditions develop, the bot has specific criterion or rules that command its behavior. Portal websites, by their very nature, utilize bots that acquire information and then index that data for users' queries. However, the bot functionality in the case of portal websites is autonomous from the user's search since it does not search the Internet as a whole each time the user posits a question. Instead, the search engine searches its own indexed database that its bot has already constructed.
This design, although functional, has its limitations. Primarily the search engine is limited in its ability to present timely, updated information. If, for example, contextual information on e-commerce websites changes quite dramatically from minute to minute, the traditional bot methodology fails to update this dynamic flow of data. When the user queries the bot's findings, the search engine presents information that is both old and erroneous. If a user relies on such flawed and outdated information to make an immediate economic decision, e.g. deciding whether to make a purchase based on the price of an item as it is reported by the search engine, the results can be extremely unfortunate.
A natural implementation of the information bot is to aid users in shopping efficiently on the Internet. With the variety of Internet shops, stores, and malls, a rational and price-minded consumer can have difficulty evaluating, monitoring, and comparing prices, quality, quantity, and availability of goods. Moreover, with the limitations of traditional search engines, the user can have trouble locating timely, up to date information concerning desired goods. What is needed is a bot capable of executing instructions to locate price and other product information based on a user's shopping criteria and instructions to regularly update such information thus allowing a shopper to quickly and efficiently find the best Internet e-commerce website for their eventual transaction.
Finding reliable product information is particularly troublesome to both consumers, shoppers, and sales representatives. Because of the wide variety of products in the marketplace that, superficially, might appear very similar to other products, there's a high risk of confusion to consumers and purchasers. Consumers can research products online or in a brick-and-mortar location, but these manual comparisons often lead to frustration.
Retailers and sellers will sometimes present their salespeople as experts or provide online information to help consumers differentiate products in the marketplace, but more often than not these forms of information are limited in their scope and only help to provide the consumer with more frustration or, worse, erroneous information and data. What is needed is a way of organizing information quickly and accurately for reference by both sales representatives and end consumers